


On The Battlements

by Veei



Series: Two Vows [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, strictly book canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-22
Updated: 2019-04-22
Packaged: 2020-01-24 02:21:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18561985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veei/pseuds/Veei
Summary: Sandor's gone to fight some mountain clans raids and Sansa doesn't know the outcome of battle





	On The Battlements

**Author's Note:**

> So it’s set about 15y after the end of Two Vows. Can be read independently. Just know they’re married and happy, two kids, and Sandor f.i.n.a.l.l.y told her about his sister (he cried).

When dusk colored the skies and they were still not back, she climbed up the battlements to wait for them. Up the south tower roof she knew no sentries of hers ventured on the decrepit pathway, not until it was restored. But she was light enough, and there was no better spot to watch over the great gate and into the forest.  
  
News of victory had flown in on raven’s wings two days ago. There was no space left on the message to detail any list of the dead. All was done, the tide of battle could not roll back, so she welcomed every distractions her duties and her young daughter offered. But days always ended and since she’d seen Sandor off, her dreams were cruel and desolate, she would rather stay awake. At night, there was nothing she could use to smother the worry that gnawed at her.  
  
Her husband had gone with their men to crush the raids upon the Barrowlands’ harvest. Her son Robb, her eldest, would have joined him if he could, hungry for honor, eager to carve history with his name. But he was not a man grown yet, thank the gods. Her sister Arya and good brother Gendry though had joined with their soldiers. Her castle of war orphans had seen many staying and serving her when they could go into the world and offer their trades to any lords of their choosing. Arya inspired loyalty the way their brother Robb had.  
  
The fighting was no big battles between entire armies this time, the mountain clans who wandered so far up north were bands of loosely armored rats, taunted by hunger and who hoped to seize one more harvest for themselves. They were disorganized and lacked good weapons. But nothing could stop the worst from happening at any moment.  
  
Not knowing who had died meant nothing, Sansa knew it. The wind in the pines was a gloomy voice, cruel as a mockingbird, that spun every possibility into a certainty. It whispered names to her. They could all be dead.  
  
Did that blood lust men talked about with equal fear and envy had taken him back in its talons? Did a lucky arrow had buried its head in his chest and burst his heart? Was she a widow now like her mother had been, condemned to walk the land without the respite of her grave. Had she lost another sibling? Her only sister.  
_Are you gone to join your sister, my lord?_  
_Did you find our babe that never opened his eyes and never cried? Do you rock him in that great night? Tell him I wanted him, I did._  
  
They had happy years together, and though Sansa knew better than most that fairness was never a due, fifteen years were not enough. Greed be damned, she wanted more.  
  
Two of their children had lived past their first hours of life. The land prospered. The realm was at peace. His Keep, a foreign place to her before, was a home. Sandor had found hard-earned respect followed fear when their people saw he was a just lord, not the cruel mutt they had heard so much tales about.  
  
Sansa drew her cloak around her shoulders, she would keep her vigil as long as necessary. She would see them all come back and be safe.  
  
Ten years ago, when Sandor came back from crushing the pirate raid on White Harbor that had turned into a siege when the Queen’s ships had blocked the attacker’s retreat, he had ridden so proudly back up the kingsroad. Tall, undefeated and unharmed. Back to her, to her arms. But in their bedchamber, still in his heavy armor, battered and blackened with suit, he had buried his head against her swollen belly and shuddered. The white city had burned for days of smoke and hellish heat. Sansa had known her husband’s fear of fire would never leave him, and she knew he must have thought himself back to one of the seven hells, again. But he didn’t broke, he remembered what the fear had done to him when the flames were green, and he mastered himself.  
  
But this night could not be more different than the winter ones when White Harbor burned. The sweet warmth of early autumn and the sickly smell of fat orchards didn't suit her anguish, but she prayed for him to ride up to her the same way again. She would comfort him, always.  
  
For hours there was nothing to see in the half-light of the fading day, then the utter darkness, but she was still awake when a rustle started in the trees. There were horses in the distance, the sound growing louder. Sansa spotted the column riding to the keep, torches dancing to the beat of hooves. Her sister Arya lead the way, Gendry following, his right arm in a sling. She searched with desperate frenzy and counted the riders, much were missing, a few jittery horses were tied on the far back, forced to follow and kicking at anyone who approached. Amongst them, she saw her husband’s grey mount. But not his rider.  
  
“No no no you swore!”, she erupted in tears, the dam of her strength breaking. The corners of her vision blackened and her sobs turned to begging. She wanted another fifteen years and then fifteen more.  
  
In a year, her son Robb would leave to be fostered. And the young one, a daughter that had survived when so many of her babies died, had been so scared of her father's scars for so long but she was learning to see the man and not his face. Fledglings in the likeness of their mother that her husband had confessed he would never love as much as he did her, but she had known since their second son never opened his eyes that it wasn’t true.  
  
She spotted the cart, the light of the torches dancing on the pile of bodies. On top of it, Sandor laid in terrifying stillness.  
  
The ground fled from under her feet. She didn’t fight the darkness. Despair had waited for her and she would not fight it any longer.  
  
*  
  
Sansa came to shouts erupting everywhere around the keep and a massive shadow perched above her. She screamed and the shadow plunged towards her before she could move out of its way. Before she screamed again she recognized him. Sandor was either here and alive, or his ghost was even more imposing than the man.  
  
“Sandor! I… I saw you on the cart..."  
“My horse went mad with the smell of blood.” He helped her sit. “I told the groom I didn't want some untested mount but he thought he knew better than me. We will have a talk, him and I, believe that.”  
  
She wrapped her arms around his neck as tight as she could. Her heart was still painfully fast but the gods be good, he was alive.  
  
“So you rode with the dead? _On_ the dead?”  
“I didn't hear them complain. We all did. It was a long ride and we didn't want to camp so close to home. We knew you would worry.”  
  
She pushed him at arm’s length.  
  
“So I wouldn't worry you pass the gate sleeping with the dead! Why didn't you take another horse?”  
“I am too heavy for the others we had left. We need to breed bigger warhorses.”  
  
Down below, her name bounced back on every stone. They must have looked for her a long while, in her chambers, in the sept, under the trees of the young godswood and the small new face of the weirwood sapling who would never see any past or future.  
  
“Seven hells, Sandor!”, she cursed, “I thought you dead, lying still with the corpses!”  
  
He didn't try to hide his surprise at seeing his courteous wife cursing and chuckled.  
  
“We rode for days, only took time to let the mounts rest. It was my turn sleeping. I only knew we had arrived when they woke me up and nobody could find you.”  
  
She sighed and he dried her tears. Her heart was slowly returning to its usual rhythm.  
  
“I'm sorry, little bird.”, he said, cupping her cheek and the warmth of his palm made her forget her agony. “Are you angry you thought me dead or angry I'm back?”  
  
She kissed him so he would stop his usual nonsense. He was back, safe and home and hers. When she kissed him she forgot how awful the world could be. Her fingers found his belt and he didn’t protest. Sandor pushed her down and pulled her skirts up to her waist. The soft silk would torn on the rough stone but she did not care.  
  
He pushed into her again and again, the smell of dried blood on him reminded her of that night, that long ago blur of green and fire. The torches gathering in the yard below granted them a little light, and she saw his eyes were sorrowful, not terrified.  
  
She could see him now, his armor was dented at the chest. Someone had come at him with a warhammer. And he had wiped most of the blood, but he could not hide the new cuts on his face. A deep gash on his scarred cheek would have to be washed and sewn soon.  
  
Sandor caught her staring and pushed harder, and she moaned loud enough for the soldiers still searching for her to hear. He laughed and she held her walls tighter around him. Two could play at this game and soon they were gripping each other hard enough to bruise. And to sing.  
  
When they were done, she nestled in his arms.  
  
“I thought you were dead, seeing you like that.”, she whispered in his neck. Seeing her husband lying still, as if ready for the funeral pyre he had made her sworn she would never send him to. The image would stay in her worst dreams, she knew.  
  
He stayed silent at that and Sansa knew at once it meant something.  
  
“Sandor...”  
“It came close.” He put her hand on the dent of his armor “Some bastard mad with blood ran at me when my sword was stuck in another fucker’s rib cage. Arya tossed me another blade but not before he took his chance. I thought my heart had burst. But I feel better now.”  
  
She fought tears again.  
  
“How many died?”  
“It can wait, littl…”  
“Tell me how many.”  
“Eleven. We expected the clans around Castle Cerwyn, but they retreated to the Wolfswood. We chased them for a week, but all we found were wolves. We found their camp deep in the woods but they were waiting for us. We should have been ready and next time we will. I will train every last one bugger under my command until they can follow an order in their sleep, I promise you that. Gendry took an arrow in the shoulder but he'll live, and if the wound doesn’t fester, he should keep the arm. A mountain rat cut my master at arms and took his arm off at the shoulder, he bled out before any of us could get back to him. And you know your sister. She danced, and no blade could cut her.”  
  
She nodded.  
  
“Thank the gods, you’re not hurt.”  
“I'm sore. War is a craft and I'm out of practice. And the dead make for a poor bed.”  
  
She shivered and he drew his cloak over her shoulder.  
  
“Do not ever scare me like that again, I swear.”  
“I meant to wake before we rode to the gate. But you scared us too, do not forget that, when we couldn't find you. I know you've been waiting for hours, the pathway could have given way beneath you at any moment.”  
  
There was a small streak of grey in his hair by his temple. She couldn’t see it, the torches were gone and the night was as dark and silent as the deep sea, but she kissed it where she knew it was. His fingers were on her braid, tracing the neverending weaving of strands into one another.  
  
“I will write to your brother in the morning. He dreamt true, he always does.”  
“He will be glad.”  
  
Bran’s dreams were true, but he didn't always trust the way he read them. The rare mistakes he made were stains on his souls only he could see.  
  
“My turn on Bran’s council starts after the harvest feast. We shall leave soon.”  
“With luck, my gift will wait for you in Winterfell already.”  
“Your gift, my lord?”  
  
This surprised her, her husband was not a man prone to let objects tell of his affections. His actions were enough.  
He smiled, she felt the muscles moving under the stubble of his right cheek.  
  
“I wanted this to be a surprise, but I reckon the wait will be as sweet to you as the gift itself.”  
  
She sat up, curious.  
  
“A singer.”, he added, “We will have him for the feast and he will follow us home. For a while at least. You might keep him all winter.”  
  
Her sharp cry of surprise was followed by a giggle. Her mind flooded with the memories of her childhood, of the banquets and the songs. She was like her mother after all, she realized, the happy woman she had been before everything was taken from her. But Sansa had had all the bad twice over already.  
  
“But you hate singers, Sandor.”  
“The gift is not for me. If he doesn’t sing to me, or to you too closely, I will ignore him as best I can. I trust Elinor will like that too. She's as soft as you are, that one.”  
  
She kissed him again, pulling him hard against her, gods she felt lucky. Sandor shifted over her but a stone loose from the wall clattered to the walk beside them and he groaned with annoyance.  
  
“Come, let us get down before the battlement crumbles from under us. I mean to have my bed,“ he pulled her to her feet and his mouth was on her neck again, his hands on her back, his strength intoxicating like a cup of strong wine, “and you, again.”  
“You will have neither until you bathe.”, she laughed.  
  
He sighed, but he would comply.  
  
“But I’ll have you brought treats from the kitchen, if you find me a place in the tub.”  
“It's a sweet bargain, Sansa.”, he grinned.  
  
They started down the crumbling stairs and soon the door would close on their bedchamber where she would map his new scars and relish the next fifteen years. And all the other ones after that. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I don't subscribe to the Bran Bot 3000, the Arya killing machine and the ice queen Sansa, so catch me salty AF giving everyone happy endings


End file.
